


Miss Holmes - Vol.1

by EBDaydreamer



Series: Sixteen Fics [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Family Drama, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 22:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12351807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EBDaydreamer/pseuds/EBDaydreamer
Summary: The Holmes Family is... dysfunctional, at best. Secret keeping geniuses with a passion for puzzles. Trying to be a normal human female in this mad family is no easy feat."Welcome to The Game, Doctor Watson."





	Miss Holmes - Vol.1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while ago, and I'm publishing the first chapter for my Sixteen Fics challenge. The next chapter will definitely not be out for a while, but I WILL continue this (I'm waaay too excited).

“Afghanistan or Iraq?” asked the man Mike had just introduced him to.

John felt a wave of shock pass over him: how on Earth could he know? They’d literally just met, and he didn’t go around telling people that he was retired from the army - he could do without the constant sympathy.

“Sorry?” he replied.

“Which was it?” He asked again, turning briefly to look at him, “Afghanistan or Iraq?”

John glanced at Mike, who merely sat there looking smug.

“Afghanistan,” John answered cautiously. “Sorry, how did you know-”

“Ah, Molly, coffee, thank you,” the man cut him off as a woman walked in with two steaming mugs. She passed one to the man and set the other on the table. When his phone was returned to him, John felt an immense curiosity and natural defensiveness stream through his veins.

The man and the woman had a short conversation about lipstick where the man commented that her mouth was too small, but instead of getting offended, she merely backed out of the room awkwardly. As she left, John heard her exchange a few words with someone, “Oh! Hattie, didn’t see you there. Coffee’s on the table.”

“Thanks, Molly,” the girl replied, strolling in with files in hand. John got a good look at her. She appeared to be in her mid-to-late teens, maybe around college age. She was quite tall with fairly sharp features. Her dark hair had been straightened and was worn in a half up half down style. The man’s gaze was immediately drawn to her as she picked up the coffee.

“What are you doing here?” he questioned.

The girl turned to him, an incredulous look on her face, “I work here, remember?”

“Yes, I know that,” the man rolled his eyes. “Don’t be obvious. I mean here  _ now. _ You don’t have any shifts today.”

Moving away from where she was storing away the files, the girl made an exasperated noise before turning to him, “I’m filling in for when I’m busy tomorrow.” She spoke through clenched teeth, and John couldn’t help but wonder who she was, “ _ remember _ ?”

A flicker of remembrance flew across the man’s face, before he swiftly went back to his work and the girl went back to her’s.

Baffled by the past two minutes, John decided to try again asking how on Earth he knew about Afghanistan. However, he was interrupted when the man spoke again, “How do you feel about the violin?”

John looked over at the girl, assuming the question was for her, but when she made no movement, he realised it was directed at him. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I play the violin when I’m thinking,” the man said as if this explained it. “Sometimes I don’t talk for days on end.” He stopped typing and looked at John, “Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.”

Just as he threw him a large smile, the girl sniggered from the corner.

“Something funny?”

“Please!” the girl chuckled, “that is not even close to the worst things about you! They’re probably your best qualities.”

“Alright. Name something worse,” the man challenged.

“Where do you want me to begin? Alphabetically or descending in levels of annoyance?”

“Sorry,” John interrupted, not fully believing that this child was sassing an adult and he appeared to be not only fine with it, but encouraging it. “Who are you? And who said anything about flatmates?”

“I did,” the man answered, picking up a coat. “Told Mike this morning I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for.”

“No ‘must’, in there. You  _ are _ a difficult man to find a flatmate for,” the girl cut in. 

The man gave her a sarcastic smile. “Apologies, I forgot to mention another annoying thing about living with me is my  _ lovely _ fifteen year old daughter,” he said to John, gesturing to the girl.

“Oh!” Mike said, realising that he was the one doing introductions here. “John, this is Hattie. Hattie, John Watson. Old friend of mine when I was a pupil here.”

Hattie gave him a pleasant smile, offering to shake his hand. John took it, wondering if he could live with a teen girl. He wasn’t sure he was up for fighting for the bathroom or being around teen mood swings. But then again, maybe she’d be with her mother half the time? Surely if her parents were living together they didn’t need a flatmate. 

Hattie ran her eyes over him, and he felt like he was being scanned. “Iraq or Afghanistan?”

“Afghanistan,” the man answered for him.

Now John was shocked. How in God’s name did she too know about Afghanistan?

“Sorry, how did you  _ both _ know about that?”

They ignored him, and the man wrapped his scarf, picked up his phone and addressed his daughter, “I’m off. Text if you’re going to be out late.” He then turned to John, “Hattie and I have eyes on a nice little place in central London. Together we ought to be able to afford it.” He paused, looking up at John, “We’ll meet there, tomorrow evening; seven o’clock. Sorry – gotta dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary.”

The man went to exit, and John whirled around, “Is that it? “

The man moved away from the door, facing John. “Is that what?”

“We’ve only just met and we’re gonna go and look at a flat?”

The man glanced briefly at Mike and his daughter before turning back to him, an almost challenging look on his face, “Problem?”

Looking towards Mike for help, he gave a disbelieving smile, but his friend just watched the man. Not quite believing the situation, John faced him again. “We don’t know a thing about each other; I don’t know where we’re meeting; I don’t even know your name.”

The man took a moment took look at him, and John briefly thought he would apologise and backtrack a little, but when he opened his mouth and started speaking a mile a minute, John realised this wasn’t the case.

“I know you’re an army doctor and you’ve been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you’ve got a brother who’s worried about you but you won’t go to him for help because you don’t approve of him - possibly because he’s an alcoholic; more likely because he recently walked out on his wife.” As he kept speaking, John couldn’t help but gawk in awe as this man - this stranger - blurted out the things he kept close and avoided sharing with anyone. “And I know that your therapist thinks your limp’s psychosomatic -” John steered his gaze away from the man towards his leg, shuffling as he felt blood rush his face, “quite correctly, I’m afraid.”

From the corner of the room, the girl let out a long sigh and John momentarily peered at her before reverting his gaze back to her father. Her lips were pursed and her eyes shifting, like she was trying to gage a reaction.

The man noticed her and directed a question at her, “How much did you get?”

“I missed the brother thing,” she replied.

“You would’ve,” he said in what John assumed was supposed to be reassuring. The man turned back to him, beginning to exit the room again. “ That’s enough to be going on with, don’t you think?” he asked smugly.

Then the man was gone, and John started trying to process what the hell just happened, when the door creaked back open and the man was leaning through it.

“The name’s Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street.”

He gives a sort of click and winked at John, closing the door and yelling back to Mike and Hattie, “Afternoon!”

Feeling his mouth gape open a little, he turned to Mike, a million questions on his tongue, before closing it again, realising half his thoughts might not be appropriate in front of the man’s daughter.

Luckily, Mike answered one of those questions for him, “Yeah. He’s always like that.”

Hattie snorted, “No he’s not. Usually,” she hoisted up a pile of files into her arms, one arm free to open the door, “he’s a lot worse. But then again, I was raised by him.”

Just as she was about to walk through the door, she turned back to John, an almost welcoming smile on her face, “I really do hope you’ll end up living with us, Dr Watson.”

Then she was gone, and John was left wondering what the hell he was getting himself into.

***

Once back in his bedsit, John still hadn’t fully progressed the strange meeting he’d just had. They were quite odd, the Holmes’. Somehow both of them knew about Afghanistan seconds after meeting him and the man even knew about Harry, though he did say it was his brother. Not only were they seemingly psychic, they had a peculiar relationship for father and daughter; she spoke to him in a tone that he would expect parents to scold their children for, but instead, Mr Holmes encouraged her - then again he did seem rather rude and arrogant. The girl, at least, appeared to be a little more polite, though certainly not to her father.

Sitting on the bed, John took out his phone, curious to see what text Holmes had sent.

‘If brother has green ladder, arrest brother

SH’

Who the hell was he?

Filled with even more questions, John pulled himself to his feet and retrieved his laptop. Slightly hesitant, he typed ‘Sherlock Holmes’ into the search engine.

He found a website - ‘The Science of Deduction’ - that gave little insight to what the man actually did, never mentioned his daughter, and had an analysis on tobacco ash.

Bewildered, John decided to open a new blog post; for once something actually happened to him.

As he began to type, he questioned whether or not mentioning the child would be a good idea: he knew some people were incredibly cautious about their name on the internet (though less so these days, it seemed), especially for children. You hear all those ghastly stories about cyberbullying…

Just to be safe, John decided to leave out the girl, and if he did end up moving in with them and continued his blog, he could discuss it with her - though it wasn’t like his blog was about to explode in popularity.

***

Hattie collapsed into the couch far sooner than she probably should have, especially with the two essay questions and four worksheets she had due in on Monday, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

School had been rough, but it had been much worse in the past. At least now most left her alone. But in Science, they’d done  _ group work _ \- her perfect torture. Her intelligence was far superior to her classmates, yet unfortunately for them, they could never take advantage of that, something she’d protected herself against when she’d started Primary School. However, that meant she usually got frustrated with her group. She didn’t see why the teacher just didn’t let her do a practical by herself.

Sherlock had asked her countless times why she didn’t just let him homeschool her, and she reminded him of two things.

1) He was too busy.

2) At least  _ one _ of them should have some form of social skills.

Admittedly the second one wasn’t too impactful.

Her thoughts shifted to Dr Watson. He didn’t seem to have a completely negative reaction to them. His hesitance now was probably in that they appeared to be freaks and the stereotype about teenage girls.

They’d had them before; they’d had worse.

At this moment, her Dad was in the kitchen, doing some kind of experiment. Knowing she didn’t possess the energy it would take to simply walk into the kitchen, she called out, “Daaad?”

“Hm?”

“Get me a packet of crisps?”

She heard his sigh, but smiled, as he brought them her anyway. He turned to go back into the kitchen, but Hattie stopped him again, “Dad?”

“What now?” he groaned, childishly.

Hesitating, she fiddled with the packet before opening it, saying what was on her mind, “You’re not going to sabotage this one, are you? Drive him away? I’m tired of moving. It’s all I-” she cut herself off, forcing down the lingering nightmares.

Sherlock seemed to get how deep this went, and sat down next to her, rubbing her arm with all the affection he could muster. “I’ll be on my best behaviour...most of the time.”

She smiled, dropping the unopened packet on the floor, “Good. Pass me the blanket, please?”

Rolling his eyes, he handed her the blanket that was far too thin for January. “Lazy thing.”

“Yup,” she agreed, though not entirely true. It was a miracle if she slept through the night, let alone feeling her body send itself to sleep.

So, yeah, she was kind of an insomniac.

“Night Dad. Don’t blow anything up.”

“Goodnight, Hatshepsut.”


End file.
